


Everything I Wish Someone Had Told You

by DemonBanisher



Series: Escaping His Shadow [3]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Emotional Support, Healing, Letters, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Recovery, Sirius Black is a Good Boyfriend, Sirius Black is a Good Friend
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-25
Updated: 2020-11-25
Packaged: 2021-03-10 01:29:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,562
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27715457
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DemonBanisher/pseuds/DemonBanisher
Summary: Sirius arrives home after lots of time spent with Remus. He decides to writes to a letter to sort through everything he's feeling about what Remus went through with Fenrir
Relationships: Sirius Black/Remus Lupin
Series: Escaping His Shadow [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2024663
Comments: 2
Kudos: 26





	Everything I Wish Someone Had Told You

**Author's Note:**

> Again TW/CW: emotional and psychological abuse, past abusive relationship, mentions of physical abuse, mentions of suicide, suicidal ideation and self harm. If there's anything else I should tag a warning for that I missed please let me know.

Sirius was back in his apartment. It was the first time he’d been home for a long stretch of time since Fenrir had texted Remus. He was exhausted, but more than anything he was worried about Remus, and angry at Fenrir. Sirius didn’t know it was possible to hate someone you had never met as much as he hated Fenrir. 

Sirius remembered when Remus had first told him everything that went down with him and Fenrir. The quiet steady way he talked about Fenrir suicides attempts, about the text messages, and the scars. He talked about them as if it was the news, as if it was some coming of age experience that every fourteen-year-old had been through. Sirius realized that he had told this story so many times, that he had lived its reality for so long, that Remus no longer understood how truly traumatic it was. 

He had taken Moony’s hand and told him how sorry he was that he had to go through all of that alone. That he missed out on so much of his youth.

Remus had given him a sad half smile and said, “It is what it is.”

He had accepted it and Sirius was sure that in some way he believed that what had happened was okay. Maybe, not that it was okay, but that it had to happen, that Moony wouldn’t be who was without it. That in some way his life or destiny had these horrors in store, and it was expected that Remus learn how to grin and bear it. 

Even now, Remus felt that he couldn’t be upset about what had happened because worse things had happened to other people. That it could have ended worse or the things that Fenrir had said and done to him weren’t that bad in the grand scheme of things. It just made Sirius want to scoop Remus up and runaway until they found some place where it wouldn’t hurt anymore. 

Sirius flopped into his desk chair. Normally, when his emotions got heightened like this he’d draw. It was his way to make sense of the mess in his head, but he wasn’t sure what image would be able to encapsulate all that he was feeling. His fingers were still itching though, so he reached into his desk drawer and rifled around into he could find the old notebook he hadn’t used in years. 

My Moony, he started. 

I wish someone had told you earlier that you don’t have to save anyone. I wonder sometimes if it is too late to ever change that course of thinking in you now. You were fourteen and the man you loved wanted to die. I don’t know how one copes with it. I’m scared enough when you have dark days now Moony and that’s with years of research, experience, and a lot of complicated conversations between the two of us to find a way that I can best support you. 

But you, you had none of that. You once told me, laughing in that way you do when you want to take some of the darkness out of what you’re going to say, that you didn’t even know how to spell the word suicide before you met Fenrir. 

Remus you were coping with your own demons. Your parents were there but a million miles away. You overcame your self harm entirely on your own, you didn’t need Fenrir there to help you. All those dark nights when you wanted so badly to not be here anymore and still you chose to stay. No one should ever have to do that on their own, let alone someone who is barely a teenager. 

I know that’s why you often don’t let me in. I know that’s why it took you so long to open up to me, that you didn’t want to scare me away, but also that you couldn’t understand there was another way to get through this. You were so used to surviving on your own you didn’t know that the burden could be anything but as heavy as it was. 

I wish someone had told you that you don’t need to carry that weight. I know schools drill you full of all that stupid “tell an adult you trust” bullshit, but I wish someone had taught you what to do if someone you knew wanted to end their life, if someone you knew was being beaten at home, if someone you knew was obsessed with you so much that your heart tightened in your chest every time you saw them. I wish you had a safe place to go to, so that you wouldn’t have had to do this alone. So that seven plus years of fear, pain, hurt, and anger wouldn’t have metastasized itself into walls that make it impossible for you to let anyone in. I wish someone had taught you how to let people in Moony, because you are so goddamn beautiful, I wish you never learned that you need to put walls around your garden. 

I wish you’d been raised and surrounded by people who made you believe that you were worth enough. I know your Ma and Dad are lovely, but I wonder sometimes. How did they know what you were doing and stand by? You told me Fenrir’s parents called once, so your parents must have known something, and still they let you suffer through it alone. They knew your best friend and the first person you ever loved was in danger and they didn’t even step up to the plate to fight. I know you’ll never speak ill about them because you think they’ve done enough for you. I wish someone had told you it’s okay to have mixed feelings about your parents, you can love them and still be angry at them for the times they left you behind. You were twelve when you started hurting yourself Remus, they shouldn’t have waited for you to explain it to them. I wish someone had told you it’s not your responsibility to make others understand your hurt. You don’t have to justify yourself to anyone. The internet exists, they can do their research and then ask questions, just like I did Moony. Just like I’ll always do, I want you to help me understand you, but I also want you to know that the burden of education isn’t yours to bear alone. 

Fenrir was sick. But that sickness doesn’t excuse anything he did. I wish someone had told you that mental illness is not an excuse for abuse. I wish someone had held your hands and told you “darling, this isn’t love.” I wish you had been able to escape earlier, I wish that you can escape the memory of all of this every day, even though I know this is something you will carry with you forever. 

More than anything Moony, I wish you got to be a child. I wish you’d had the kind of stupid first romance that you could have looked back on in thirty years and laughed about. I wish you got to spend your high school years buried in stupid celebrity gossip and making dumb decisions at parties with the kind of rationale that only dumb teenagers have. I wish you didn’t have to play medic, therapist, boyfriend, and saviour all at once. I wish you’d had someone to rescue you while you were so busy trying to save someone else. So that for just one moment you could have got to experience the sheer stupidity of being a teenager in high school.

It’s okay to mourn the fact that you lost that Moony. It’s okay to mourn all the people you never got to be. 

I wish you healing. I wish you happiness. I wish you a bright future. 

I hope our love has shown you that you worthy of beautiful things. I wasn’t there then, but I’m here now. And I’ll keep telling you all the things that I wish someone had told you in hopes that you understand that this isn’t on you. The people who were supposed to protect you. The systems we put in place to look after our children. They failed you Remus. You could never have failed because you were trying to drive a car without a map. 

I know the next few weeks are going to be hard. I know that right now you feel like that scared, useless teen all over again. But Remus, you are so much stronger than you know. You survived a battle that no one ever taught you how to fight. But I need you to know, you don’t have to do this on your own anymore. I’m here. James, Peter, and Lily are here for you. Your roommates are here for you. You aren’t alone anymore Remus. I’m so sorry you ever were. 

Sirius brushed tears back from his eyes as he finished writing the letter. He didn’t know if he’d ever show it to Remus, but it felt good to put down on paper, to acknowledge all the things inside of him that were aching for the life Moony hadn’t gotten to live. He didn’t have a time machine. He couldn’t go back and fix this, but he could try and help heal the scar tissue it left behind.

**Author's Note:**

> I never expected to write this series, but here we are three fics in. I hope some readers find this helpful or that it makes them feel a little less alone. Come find me on tumblr and insta @sleepcreatecaffeinate or leave me a comment or kudos here! As always thanks for reading, it means the world to me.


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